Appeal No. 2004-0759
Application No. 09/363,038 Page 4
downstream from the pickling tank. As reasonably determined by
the examiner, Oshima, like appellant, discloses steel treating
apparatus including: (1) a tank (9, fig. 1) that is useful for
treating steel with acid to remove a surface oxide therefrom and
corresponds to appellant’s pickling tank; and (2) a downstream
electroplating tank (14, fig. 1) that corresponds with the
claimed electro-coating tank.
Appellant maintains that Claim 14 provides for a hot rolled
steel treating apparatus and is constructed without any
intermediate processing stages between the pickling and electro-
coating tanks and such an equipment arrangement is not suggested
by Oshima. We disagree.
At the outset, we note that whether the claimed apparatus is
used for treating cold or hot rolled steel is immaterial since
the appealed claims are drawn to an apparatus, not a method.
Thus, the material that may be acted upon by the structure does
not serve to distinguish the claimed apparatus from the applied
prior art. Moreover, the tank (9, fig. 1) of Oshima is taught as
being useful for treating steel with an acid as disclosed at
column 5, lines 58-60 and column 6, lines 17-21 of the patent.
We are not persuaded by appellant’s argument that the
language of claim 14 concerning the positioning of an electro-
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